04/20/2017 – David Pearson needs no introduction to NASCAR fans, the legendary ‘Silver Fox’ won 105 races in only 574 starts (looking at his career statistics, one could argue that he only ran a true full-time schedule for 5 of the 28 years he raced in Cup), claimed the pole position 113 times, and won 3 Cup Championships (one of which was his astounding 1969 season where he managed to attain 42 top-5’s out of 51 starts).
When mentioning Pearson, the owners/cars he is usually associated with are his great successes with Cotton Owens/Dodge, Holman-Moody/Ford, and the Wood Brothers/Ford, but it was in a Pontiac that Pearson first visited victory lane.
Breaking into Cup in 1960, Pearson campaigned self-owned Chevrolets without much success (he did win his first career pole at Gamecock Speedway, Sumter SC). The 1961 season started pretty much the same until he he was asked to drive John Masoni’s 1961 Daytona Beach Kennel Club Pontiac for the 1961 World 600 at Charlotte. Pearson proceeded to dominate the race (starting 3rd but leading by the second lap) leading 225 of 400 laps on the day and putting the rest of the field no less than 2 laps down (despite limping around the final 3 laps with a flat tire).
Pontiac Racing 